The root of Wanderer goes back to the year 1885. After the turn of the century the production range was extended by automobiles. The serial production of automobiles started in 1913. Economic difficulties lead to the sale of the motorcycle section at the end of the 1920s. In 1932, Wanderer had to join the Auto-Union. Wanderer cars were the second largest batch of the passenger cars stock of the Auto-Union with 57,447 exemplars. In the 1930s, Wanderer made several thousand Kübelwagen of the types W 11 and W 23 S. Later, Wanderer was involved in the production of the m. gl. Einheits-Pkw. From 1943 to 1944, Wanderer had to manufacture the Steyr 1500 A under license.